"The hospital." Nuocheng slid into the car, voice steadier than he felt. "Not the office."
Chenxi glanced at him through the mirror, already pulling out into traffic. "What happened last night?"
Nuocheng recounted it flat and clinical, like reciting a report rather than his own memory.
Chenxi’s knuckles went white on the wheel, though he stayed quiet until Nuocheng finished.
"I want whatever footage exists from last night. Security cameras, phones, anything."
"He’s probably already thought of burying it."
"Probably." Nuocheng stared out the window, jaw tight. "Get it anyway. I have a feeling he’ll try to make it disappear the moment he realizes I’m not letting this go."
At the hospital, he requested the blood work himself, sitting through the draw without complaint, the whole process oddly calming in its clean, procedural distance from everything that had actually happened. He waited in a small private room afterward, phone in hand, refusing to think too hard about what the results might say.
The doctor returned with the paperwork, her expression carefully neutral, the kind that usually meant bad news.
"We found traces of two compounds." She slid the printout across the table. "An aphrodisiac, and a synthetic heat inducer."
Nuocheng read the words twice, something cold settling into his chest even as a short, humorless laugh escaped him.
Of course. Of course Yuanjun hadn’t just wanted him drunk and pliant. He’d wanted a heat, manufactured or not, something that would guarantee exactly the outcome he’d been so casually discussing at that table.
"Thank you." Nuocheng folded the paper carefully and tucked it into his jacket. "I’d like copies sent to my lawyer’s office as well."
"Of course, Mr. Gu."
He walked out with his spine straight and his expression composed, though something dark and satisfied curled quietly behind his calm. Yuanjun wanted to play games with his body, with his future, with a lie about a marriage no one had agreed to.
Fine.
He’d teach him a lesson he’d never forget for the rest of his life. Whatever it took, however long it took, Nuocheng intended to make sure he understood exactly what he’d tried to take, and exactly how badly he’d miscalculated in the attempt.
Chenxi waited by the car when he emerged, phone still in hand. "The office—"
"I’m skipping today." Nuocheng slid into the back seat, already loosening his tie. "I need rest, and I need to think. You’re watching the company for me."
"Understood." Chenxi hesitated before shutting the door. "Are you actually okay?"
"I will be." Nuocheng’s voice came out quieter than intended. "Once I’m done with him."
Sicheng smelled the problem before he saw it.
The scent hit him from halfway down the block, something acrid and unfamiliar clinging to the air outside his building. By the time he reached the entrance, he understood exactly what it was.
His belongings sat scattered across the sidewalk. A mattress leaned against the wall, several boxes half open with clothes spilling out, his roommate crouched beside the mess scrolling through his phone like none of it concerned him.
"What happened?" Sicheng’s voice came out sharper than he meant it to, already scanning the pile for anything salvageable.
His roommate looked up, entirely unbothered. "Landlord kicked us out. Said rent’s been late three months running. You didn’t know?"
"No, I didn’t know." Sicheng’s stomach dropped straight through the pavement. He crouched down, digging through the nearest box with increasing urgency, tossing aside shirts and books in search of the one thing that actually mattered.
The metal lockbox wasn’t there.
He tore through the next box, then the next, his movements growing more frantic with every empty search. "Where’s the money?"
"What?"
"Where’s the money?" His voice cracked on the second attempt, hands shaking as he dumped an entire box out onto the concrete, sifting through the wreckage of his own belongings for a box that wasn’t there. "The lockbox. Where is it?"
"I don’t know, man, it was probably in the pile the movers took—"
"That was everything I had." Sicheng’s throat closed around the words, hot and thick. Every gig, every double shift, every ounce of sleep he’d sacrificed for the past year sat inside that box, saved for his tuition, for his sister’s rent, for the future he’d been clawing toward one exhausting day at a time.
Gone. All of it, gone, swept up in some landlord’s eviction crew without a second thought.
He sat back on his heels in the middle of the wreckage, staring at his own scattered life laid out across a public sidewalk, and felt the first hot press of tears threaten behind his eyes.
What kind of miserable luck was this?
He had nowhere to sleep tonight. No money for a hotel, not even a cheap one. No lockbox, no savings, nothing left except the clothes still scattered across the concrete and whatever cash happened to be in his own wallet, which wasn’t nearly enough for anything close to a solution.
Just what was he supposed to do now?
He thought, briefly, of calling his sister, then dismissed the idea just as fast. She had her exams to worry about, her own precarious footing in the world. The last thing she needed was her older brother’s disasters landing on her doorstep on top of everything else. He was supposed to be the one holding things together, not the one falling apart on a sidewalk in front of his own scattered belongings.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, forced his breathing steady, and started gathering what he could salvage into the remaining boxes. Somewhere in this mess, he’d figure out where to sleep tonight. He always figured something out.
He just wished, for once, it didn’t feel quite this much like scraping the bottom of an empty well.
His roommate, at least, had already found somewhere else to crash for the night, judging by the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and the distinct lack of concern on his face.
Sicheng didn’t ask where. He didn’t have the energy left to be angry at someone else’s good fortune when his own had run out so completely.